PLN-18

Out of 1000 girls in Denver, 54.5 will become pregnant between the ages of 15 and 17. To prevent this, Colorado High schools and even some middle schools have started handing out birth control and emergency contraceptive pills to students. In Do schools have birth-control role? in the Denver Post, handing birth control out to schools is focused upon.

This article affects the world in many ways. Drop out rates are affected by teen pregnancy and teen pregnancy is a huge problem in some schools. However, handing out birth control, in the long run, does not stop this problem. Teens are, and always will be sexually active, and although in many cases, birth control does prevent pregnancy, in some cases; it does not. My sister knew a woman who got pregnant after both she and her husband used two types of birth control. Many times, for some reason or another, birth control can malfunction.

The controversial subject of this article really shocked me. I realize that teen pregnancy can be an huge problem in high schools, but I never thought that it might be a problem in middle schools. At that age, most boy still think we have cooties, so the idea that young teens in middle schools are sexually active is really kind of frightening. High schools students are old enough to know what they are getting themselves into, and handing out birth control only encourages them.

When teens know that they can have sex and not get pregnant because their schools are handing out birth control, it doesn't stop them from having sex, it makes them think, "oh, well, now that I am safe..." The reality of it is, we aren't protected students by handing out birth control, we are making them believe that sex before marriage; that sex before graduation, is okay, and that they will never have to face the consequences of it. In all honesty, the consequences of malfunctioning birth control are just as bad as not handing it out at all. We can't do anything about teens sexual lives, except to talk to them and hope that we get through to them.